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U.S. employers push increase in cost of healthcare onto workers

A new survey shows an average worker with a family plan pays nearly $4,000 a year, up 14% from 2009. Meanwhile, the average employer contribution to a family plan hasn’t increased at all.  The average worker with a family plan was hit with 14% premium increase this year, pushing the bill to nearly $4,000 a year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.

That is the largest annual increase since the survey began in 1999 and a marked change from previous years, when employers generally split the rise in the cost of premiums with their employees. The average employer contribution to a family plan did not go up at all this year, meaning the entire increase was borne by workers. At the same time, nearly a third of employers reported that they either reduced the scope of benefits they are offering this year or increased the amount that workers must pay out of pocket for their medical care.

Workers saw average copays for routine office visits increase 10% and deductibles continue their surge upward. In 2010, more than a quarter of American workers with employer-provided health coverage were in plans with deductibles of at least $1,000

Source: LA Times

Prescription Drug Use Rose to Include Half of Americans in 2008

Almost half of Americans took at least one prescription drug per month in 2008, an increase of 10 percent over the past decade, a U.S. study found.  One of every five children ages 11 or younger took at least one medication each month in 2008, led by asthma and allergy treatments, according to the survey released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among those ages 60 or older, 37 percent used five or more prescriptions per month.  U.S. spending for prescription drugs more than doubled to $234.1 billion over the 10 years covered by the report.

Source: Bloomberg Business Week

Allegan pays $600 million fine for illegal marketing of Botox

The government’s civil complaint said that Allergan had “illegally, vigorously and, without any thought to the possible negative health effects to which it subjected patients, promoted” Botox for uses that had not been deemed safe and effective by the F.D.A.

The company developed and put in place a wide-ranging marketing program, according to the complaint, that included paying kickbacks to doctors to induce them to prescribe Botox for conditions — like pain and severe spasms in the limbs of children with cerebral palsy — not included in the drug’s label.

Federal prosecutors also accused the company of teaching doctors how to get reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid for off-label uses by putting in the codes for an approved treatment.

Source: NY Times

Meridia increases heart risks

Final data from the so-called SCOUT study, published on Wednesday, showed Meridia increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients who already have heart disease. Patients taking the drug lost an average of 8.8 pounds (4 kg).

Patients given Meridia had a 16 percent increased risk of heart problems such as heart attack or stroke compared to those given a placebo, the study showed. There was no increased risk of death, although Meridia patients also saw an increase in blood pressure and heart rate, it said.

Source: Reuters

U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected accelerated approval for a novel breast-cancer drug

Swiss-based Roche is developing trastuzumab-DM1, or T-DM1, in partnership with biotechnology company ImmunoGen Inc.  Roche said it will continue to work with the FDA on the drug, and expects to make a new submission by mid-2012.  ”We firmly believe in the potential of T-DM1 as a novel HER2 targeted option and remain fully committed to its ongoing development,” said Hal Barron, chief medical officer at Genentech, the Roche unit that is working on the treatment.

In HER2-positive breast cancer, increased quantities of the HER2 protein are present on the surface of the tumor cells. This form of cancer affects approximately 20% to 25% of women with the disease, which is the most common cancer among women world-wide, killing nearly 400,000 people each year.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Get erectile dysfunction ads out of prime time, nation’s pediatricians say

Parents, lawmakers and media executives are given plenty to think about in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement published Sunday. Kids today are bombarded with inappropriate sexual messages and images, the AAP committee said; everything from graphic sexual lyrics in songs to ubiquitous erectile dysfunction drug advertisements that air all hours of the day and night.

Source: LA Times

Novo Nordisk Creates “App” to Help Doctors Dose Insulin

Novo Nordisk announced today the availability of NovoDose^TM– the first-ever mobile insulin dosing guide for physicians to look up dosing guidelines and blood glucose goals for their patients with diabetes, a disease that affects nearly 24 million Americans. The guide is available as an application on iTunes and is specific to Novo Nordisk’s modern insulin analog portfolio.

This new technology is part of a trend of physicians using hand-held devices (i.e., PDAs or SmartPhones) when treating their patients. According to a survey conducted by Manhattan Research of nearly 2,000 physicians:

• 70 percent believe their PDA/SmartPhone is “essential” to their practice, and
• 81 percent want more apps related to their specialty.

Source: A Sweet Life

Cocktails Are Next For Cancer-Drug Makers

A diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence until the advent of drug cocktails in the 1990s allowed patients to suppress the disease indefinitely. Now scientists say a similar combination strategy may change the course of cancer treatment.  For more than a decade, cancer researchers have been crafting drugs to disrupt the precise cellular processes that fuel cancer, creating a $51 billion market in 2009. So far, the survival benefits have been measured in months, not years. That’s because cancer, like the virus that causes AIDS, evolves rapidly to evade a single treatment. Rather than mixing and matching approved drugs, researchers are developing new, targeted combinations that work in tandem to block cancer.

“We’re looking to see a radical change in terms of stopping the disease in its tracks,” says Tal Zaks, head of global oncology drug development at Sanofi in Paris. “The return on investment here is not going to be just evolutionary; it has the potential to be revolutionary.”

Source: Business Week

FDA getting tough with certain drug trials

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on use of certain clinical trials that show a new drug is no worse than another already on the market, according to a government report released on Friday.

Such trials, known as non-inferiority trials, are used when drugmakers want to compare their experimental product to another one that is already FDA-approved. By showing that their new drug is no worse than another, it can also show some potential benefits such as fewer side effects.

Source: Reuters

FDA: Very concerned about Baxter continued violative promotion of their products

The FDA wants to know what Baxter is planning to do to ensure that they don’t continue to violate guidelines.

Source: FDA Website

About.com Health Study shows more people going online to manage their health

We are seeing a significant rise in people using online to take charge of their health and better educate themselves about conditions and treatment options; allowing them to make informed decisions and have knowledgeable discussions with their doctors.

Right after diagnosis with a new condition, respondents took the following actions:

• Used search engines to find more information about conditions (65% in 10 vs. 47% in 09)
• Used search engines to learn about different treatment options (47% in 10 vs. 16% in 09)
• Went to health websites to find more information about conditions (43% in 10 vs. 20% in 09)

Source: World of DTC Marketing